This sauce isn’t based on anything out of a city in Southern Ohio, tho, nope, this sauce is based on one we enjoyed while spending a week in Santa Barbara. We rented a house in the hills and one evening, opted to order in pizza instead of driving the winding roads down into town. The pizza, from a local-ish chain (Palo Alto, actually) was lovely, and the sauce nicely spiced so…

I went on the interwebs in search of a recipe and came across an interview with the owner of the chain where he gave his pizza sauce recipe.

The thing is, when I followed his recipe, I thought the sauce lacked a little sumpin’ sumpin’, so ended up adding a few additional seasonings. You can go ahead and try the sauce as he wrote it and see if you’re happy with that, or, just add the additional goodies at the same time you add the chopped fresh basil.

Note: you will need a food mill to remove the tomato skins and seeds. Leaving them in will give you a bitter tomato sauce.

Add the tomatoes, onion, and butter to a large pot and cook over medium low heat for about 20 minutes, until the tomatoes are nicely softened.

Remove the onion and set the tomatoes aside to cool.

Run the tomatoes through a food mill with the medium disk to remove the skin and seeds, I ended up with six cups of pulp.

Return the tomato pulp to the pot and cook on low for another 30 to 40 minutes, until the liquids have reduced by about one third and the sauce has thickened a bit. Set aside to cool, again.

Warm the olive oil in a medium skillet over medium heat, then add the garlic and cook until it has turned golden. Remove the garlic and discard.

Add the basil and the reduced tomato sauce (just a bit over two cups) and simmer for ten minutes.

Give it a taste – as I noted above, I thought the sauce needed a bit of zipping up, so stirred in 1/4 teaspoon of my seasoned salt blend, 1/2 teaspoon of my old standby, Cajun Power Spicy Garlic Pepper Sauce, 1/2 teaspoon of dried Italian Seasoning, and a bit of freshly ground black pepper, then set it back to simmer for another five minutes.

Much more better!

Pizza sauce made, it was time for the main event, the za!

I went with my no yeast beer pizza dough recipe, and traditional (for us) toppings of pepperoni, black olives, Mozzarella and Asiago cheeses, and we were well pleased with the results.

In the end, I had plenty of sauce for this za!, and about a pint left over for other things…